


Appearances

by her_majesty_wears_jeans



Series: Divided Loyalties [1]
Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: (or you can read more into it if you want), Canon Compliant, Female Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Season/Series 01, little to no dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-08-05 23:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16377011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/her_majesty_wears_jeans/pseuds/her_majesty_wears_jeans
Summary: ”Considering how wrong Nadine had been of Vincent, she should’ve given Elizabeth McCord the benefit of doubt much earlier. She’d meant what she’d said to Blake about having a sense of duty to the woman. - - Nadine was Elizabeth McCord’s “guy”. Had been for a while.”A late night with boring paperwork and good company makes Nadine reflect on her choices. Early s1.





	Appearances

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. It started out as a drabble I wrote six months ago ‘cause I was bored on a lecture and then forgot about. I found it last week, decided to tweak it just a bit before posting it - and then it grew into this. Idk, I just love exploring this relationship.
> 
> Anyway! Early-series. Nadine. Elizabeth. Mentions of Vincent Marsh. Enjoy! 
> 
> Side note: this fic complies with my headcanon that Nadine doesn't call Elizabeth by her name even in her head, hopefully that doesn't bother anyone too much.

By the time midnight rolled around, only one room on the seventh floor remained lit. Nadine was sitting on the couch in the Secretary’s office, her feet tucked under her as she tried to keep her eyes open enough to catch the possible typos in Matt’s speech. It was hardly the first time she had had to work late, and although she generally spent those nights alone in her office, it wasn’t uncommon for her to keep company to the Secretary as they both did their respective paperwork in silence. Vincent and she had often made use of the privacy the wee hours of the morning had provided. That time, however, Nadine’s high heels had another pair lying next to them on the floor. 

Nadine paused for a moment, side-eyeing the Secretary who was settled on a chair opposite her, her stocking-clad feet propped up on the coffee table next to a wobbling pile of files Nadine was itching to move further away.

Elizabeth McCord’s short reign in the State Department had had more than its share of conflicts already. It wasn’t their first long night but Nadine realized they’d always been accompanied by someone: occasionally Daisy, often Jay, always at least the looming possibility of an international crisis.

“I’m not keeping you here, am I?”

Nadine looked up in surprise, meeting the Secretary’s slightly apologetic gaze.

“Unless you’re ‘The Advantages of Increasing the Global Trade of Electronics in South America’, then no, ma’am”, she quipped, waving the volume she’d picked up to skim read after being satisfied with Matt’s second draft.

The Secretary’s chuckle made Nadine feel warm. Truth be told, the paper she was reading could have waited; she had planned to look over it the next morning before leaving for work. Despite what she had just told the other woman, though, since she wasn’t leaving the office before the Secretary did that night, Nadine had figured she might as well get started right away.

“That ought to put anyone to sleep. How are you still awake?” Removing her glasses in order to rub her temples, the Secretary offered a wry smile. “I feel like I’ve been asleep since the conference call with ambassador Knudsen.” 

Nadine hid her smirk. The man was notoriously long-wetted. She’d once had to usher Matt and Daisy out of a meeting with him since the former had kept finger count of times the ambassador had used the word “however”, and Daisy hadn’t exactly succeeded in passing her giggling fits as coughs.

“Well, you’ve done a good job with masking it, ma’am. Practicing foreign politics while sleepwalking is quite the task.”

The Secretary let out a genuine laugh at that, and Nadine suddenly felt the need to avert her eyes. Staring at her lap, she allowed a small smile to cross her lips. Two months ago she would never have come up with such a retort, let alone think to voice it. Two months ago she had seen Elizabeth McCord as nothing but a naïve amateur trying to hijack her department. 

Nadine surmised she had been partly right. Elizabeth McCord had done more than hijack the State Department, though; she’d owned it. It was _her_ department now, down to the policies she liked to ignore, and the staff members whose loyalties had recently been questioned by not only themselves but also the Secretary herself.

Or maybe Nadine was just generalizing a personal problem. She hadn’t been exactly surprised by the Secretary having her investigated, nor would she have had any right to be after serving her affair with Vincent up on a plate. As far as traitors went, she was the best candidate.

Nadine hoped she wouldn’t feel guilty for still withholding information from the Secretary. But coming clean about the bank account… would more or less mean admitting to an international fraud.

Dear Lord, what had she gotten herself into?

She’d jeopardized her name, her job, her freedom on a foolish notion of love, and she was ashamed of that. She was beyond disappointed with herself for letting it happen; first stooping down to having an affair with her married boss, and then letting him corrupt her morals even further. 

And now she was debating whether or not to destroy Secretary McCord’s newly found trust in her by owning up to her mistakes, all a hundred and one of them. In a way, she wanted to, even if it meant incriminating herself and coming face to face with God knew what else Vincent had been up to. She just couldn’t. Not after the Secretary had shredded the pipeline rapport for being falsified, and fired Bollings for lying to POTUS and trying to promote a nuclear war. Not when it seemed that Vincent Marsh had marred everything he’d touched.

_You’re still here._

Sneaking a sidelong gaze to the woman whose words echoed in her head, Nadine bit her lower lip gently. The Secretary had returned her attention to the papers on the table, hopefully not noticing her chief of staff zoning out. Although, if she had remarked her eyes glossing over, the Secretary would have probably chalked it up to the rapport Nadine was supposed to be reading and let it slide. As brusque as the woman could be at times, her indifference was always towards courses of action, never the people she was dealing with. Being understanding was just one of the ways she stood out in Washington.

Considering how wrong Nadine had been of Vincent, she should’ve given Elizabeth McCord the benefit of doubt much earlier. She’d meant what she’d said to Blake about having a sense of duty to the woman. It had taken a generous amount of champagne to admit but as soon as the words had left her mouth, there had been no taking anything back. Nadine was Elizabeth McCord’s “guy”. Had been for a while. She had even gone as far as to trying to tell the Secretary herself that, though obviously in much subtler tones as she’d been sober then.

Not knowing where the lines went and definitely not wanting to cross any of them, Nadine had dropped hints. Cautious smiles and polite eye contact had started turning into measured quips and downright telepathic glances as they both had grown more comfortable around each other. Now that she was not trying to work around the Secretary rather than for her – dare she say, _with_ her – Nadine couldn’t help admitting they made a good team. The thought was more pleasing than she would ever have guessed, making her even gladder to have taken the first step after the Swaziland dinner **.**

She’d had her doubts about the dinner going as planned from the moment the Secretary had asked about the AIDS epidemic in the country. She had started to prepare for a catastrophe when during the days leading up to the dinner the Secretary had, instead of running through the etiquette and the names of the king’s wives, been running an off-the-books operation in Syria **.**

In the end, the Secretary had pulled off both tasks seemingly effortlessly, of course. Recognizing when to admit she’d been wrong, Nadine had allowed herself to be impressed with the natural diplomatic tact the Secretary had shown over the dinner and the innovative plot of taking advantage of the media’s fixation on women’s looks.

Cautiously glancing up from the document on her lap and realizing she was practically alone in the room, Nadine smiled ruefully as she took a moment to just observe the Secretary. She’d gathered the woman used fashion strictly as means to an end a long time ago. Obviously she’d heard about the time the Secretary had greeted Anton Gorev in pajamas and rubber gloves. (First from an outraged Russell Jackson and later from the amused Secretary McCord herself; Nadine had somehow managed to keep a straight face through both of those conversations.) Yet, Nadine had never seen the Secretary as disheveled as she was at the moment. Her glasses were falling from her nose, her hair was tousled and pushed behind her ears, her blouse untucked and unbuttoned at the top. She didn’t look unkempt exactly but… comfortable, softer around the edges. Nadine guessed that was the woman Henry McCord welcomed home every night. She liked that side of her boss: authentic and not the least bit pretentious. The Secretary looked like she’d worked a nine to five shift twice over, which she essentially had. 

Nadine knew she was every bit the mess the Secretary was. She’d disregarded her suit jacket hours ago, and her dress was wrinkled and kept riding up as it rubbed against the couch cushions. To her surprise, the realization wasn’t as horrifying as it should’ve been. Whether it was a matter of looks or opinion, Nadine felt she always needed to keep up less of a charade for the Secretary than for anyone else at the office. Maybe it was because her boss was a trained operative; maybe Nadine simply let her read her. She was honestly not sure anymore.

What she was sure of was that the Secretary would discover the rest of her chief of staff’s shameful past. It would probably be sooner rather than later, and when that day would arrive, Nadine could only hope she would be as understanding as she’d been the first time around. Until then, there wasn’t really anything Nadine could do – except her job.

So for the moment, she would carefully nudge the Secretary awake and send the woman home. Then she’d sort out the files they had gotten through, wrap everything up for the morning briefing, get her things from her office and finally head home for much-needed sleep. For the moment, Nadine would settle for pretending to be the person Elizabeth McCord thought she knew.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are most welcome :)


End file.
